One of the biggest stories in paleontology this past month was the announcement of a beautifully complete fossil of an Eocene primate scientifically christened Darwinius messilae, and given the popular moniker “Ida.” A massive publicity campaign, including a book release and a documentary hosted by Sir Richard Attenborough, was launched in tandem with the fossil’s description in the online journal PLoS ONE. A backlash erupted throughout the science-minded blogosphere/twitterverse, deriding the more breathless claims that this one specimen was the “missing link” that will “change everything.”

Some of the earliest and most insightful comments came from Brian Switek at Laelaps. Earlier today, Brian compiled a collection of his and others’ Darwinius-related posts into a blog carnival called Uncovering “Ida”—an excellent resource for anyone interested in the interaction between science, publicity, and media (new and old).

More of Viktor’s excellent reconstructions, in a variety of media, can be seen at his website: www.anatomicalorigins.com.

This is the first of these conferences I’ve had the pleasure to attend, and I am grateful to Judy Peterson for inviting me up to show some of my drawings & paintings in the Symposium’s paleo-art show. Judy put together a roster of about 25 artists who participated in the show, including a couple of folks I’d met previously and several faces who were new to me.

Above: Russell Hawley, from the Tate Museum at Casper College, showed off some of his amazingly detailed pen-and-ink drawings of ancient environments. Below: The prolific Greg Sweatt brought along his easel and put the finishing touches on one oil painting, then began two more during the one-day show.

Above: Neffra Matthews and some of her fantastic ichnological quilts. Below: In addition to his meticulous drawings, Todd Green displayed his beautifully pieced-together skeleton of a hatching emu.

Other artists (with online galleries) at the show included Tiffany Miller, Eric Parrish, and Gary Raham.

The theme of this year’s Symposium was Paleoclimates: Exploring Past Environments, and I was able to sit in on a handful of talks by various workers and students exploring the topic. Much attention was given to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a fairly rapid spike in global temperature 55 million years ago, when Wyoming was covered in tropical forests and alligators lived well north of the Arctic Circle. An analogy that came up in several talks could be summed up as follows:

Today’s climatologists : PETM :: Today’s economists : The Great Depression

Interestingly (perhaps frighteningly), multiple speakers noted that when models used in current climate change predictions were run with Paleocene-Eocene parameters, they ended up with polar temperatures nearly 10°C cooler than geologic/fossil evidence suggests…

Back on Darwin Day 2004, HMNH Curator of Ich-theology Ray Troll and Kirk Johnson came through Albuquerque on one of the last legs of their epic Fossil Freeway adventure. That evening, the three of us got together and recited The Evolutionist’s Prayer, an ode to common descent that Ray and I composed for the occasion. Feb. 12 is a great time to reflect on our rich evolutionary heritage and deep connections to all life on this planet.

This year, Ray has released a new piece of art and music in honor of the occasion – check out Trollart.com and give his new song, “Fishface,” a listen!

Artwork © Ray Troll 2009

Other Darwin-inspired links of note:

• In other Darwinian music news, Thomas Holtz provides the lyrics to “The Twelve Days of Darwin.”
• ReBecca Hunt at Dinochick Blogs has some great Darwin art, and a couple of Ray Troll posts of her own.
• Seed Magazine has several articles, slideshows, and other tidbits as part of their Darwin 200 celebration—The Evolution of Life in 60 seconds and the Saved by Science slideshow are good places to start.
• The Daily Mammal has two drawings (so far) up in a “Darwin Day” series.
• Rigor Vitae shows the Evolution of a Public Image in honor of the day.
• I couldn’t agree more with John Hawks’ criticism of a recent article calling for the death of “Darwinism”.
• And, if you’ve never taken a look at Anne Weaver’s The Voyage of the Beetle, today would be an excellent day to do so!

I’m happy to announce the release of a new book—The Paleontology of New Mexico by Barry S. Kues. Dr. Kues is a professor of paleontology in the Earth & Planetary Sciences Department at the University of New Mexico with a longstanding interest in the prehistory of our state. The handsome cover (more on that later) states that this is an updated and expanded version of Dr. Kues’ 1982 work, Fossils of New Mexico. But since that time, so much fieldwork and research has been done around New Mexico that this work is literally twice the size of its predecessor, and almost entirely rewritten.

The book follows a familiar format—a few introductory chapters, followed by a chapter-by-chapter look at the fossils known from each geological period through the Paleozoic & Mesozoic Eras, and by epoch through the Cenozoic. (The least fossiliferous chapter of New Mexican prehistory? The highly volcanic Oligocene, which takes up less than a page in this book.) The text is written in a style I’d describe as “accessible scientific,” and the book contains numerous black and white illustrations, mostly compiled from the primary literature, which provide ample visual appeal for the interested non-specialist. All in all, this volume is a very solid overview of the current state of paleontology in the State of New Mexico.

I do want to thank Barry Kues and the publishers at UNM Press for giving me the opportunity to create a painting for the cover—a dapper Parasaurolophus tubicen hooting at dusk on the shores of a steamy Cretaceous riverbank in what is now northwest New Mexico. (And a big thank you to Mina Yamashita at the Press for a cover design that really pops the painting off of the jacket!)

The Paleontology of New Mexico is available online now – from UNM Press, Amazon, and the Museum of New Mexico Foundation Shops.

From this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune, I learned of the life-sized (or larger) sculptures of Ricardo Breceda, who is in the process of installing an entire zoo of sheet metal megafauna on the Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs, California. The project appears to be a collaboration between sculptor Breceda, who was inspired to start sculpting prehistoric animals after watching Jurassic Park, and landowner Dennis Avery, who came up with the idea of “of adding ‘free standing art’ to his property” to recreate the area’s prehistoric inhabitants.

It’s hard not to be impressed with ambitious scope of this project, and Breceda’s sculptures seem to be a perfect fit for the arid landscape around Borrego Springs. I’m particularly fond of the character and detailing seen in the Gomphotherium (shown above) and the smaller ground sloths, like this little fella.

• “Cave Man of Early Britain”, shown above, who seems quite a bit rougher around the edges than his rarified contemporary, l’Homme Neanderthal.
• A dramatically foreshortened moa.
• A Jurassic scene by early paleoartist Joseph Smit. Unsigned pieces that look like Smit’s work include this size comparison of a human, Diplodocus, and Gigantosaurus, and a couple of placid sauropods unperturbed by the kangaroo-hopping carnosaur (Laelaps?) entering from stage left.
• Paleolithic art authority Abbe Henri Breuil.
• Lots of AMNH exhibits and specimens:
  • Walter Granger and Barnum Brown alongside the AMNH Tenontosaurus.
  • Assembling the Anatotitan pair at the AMNH.
  • Working on the old Tyrannosaurus mount.
  • Cleaning a cast of the Styracosaurus skull.
  • The fossil of the gliding reptile Icarosaurus, before it flew the coop at the AMNH (and made its way back again).
  • A Placodus skeleton.
  • Dusting the Wilmette Meteorite.
• And this shot of teenager Tony Lessa sporting a Coelophysis on his ride.

From the One Velociraptor per Child mission statement:

“Most of the nearly two billion children in the developing world have inadequate access to dinosaurs. Some receive no paleontology training at all. One in three has never even seen a dinosaur in person…

…dinosaur ownership emphasizes what Chua calls “survival learning” as the fundamental experience. A dinosaur uniquely fosters learning survival skills by allowing children to “think about living” in ways that are otherwise impossible.”

This years winners, in three categories:

• 3-D: Tyler Keillor

Sculpture and photo by Tyler Keillor

Tyler is a talented preparator and sculptor for the University of Chicago’s Fossil Laboratory. Chances are you’ve seen his work before—both his Rugops and Nigersaurus got a lot of play in the media, and he’s recently gotten some attention for the “Stone Age Embrace” plaque reproducing the Gobero triple-burial uncovered from the “People of the Green Sahara” project. Tyler won this year’s Lanzendorf Prize for his sculpture of the Devonian “fishopod” Tiktaalik roseae (shown above). A little web searching uncovered a video showing how Tyler created this award-winning sculpture:

• 2-D: Luis V. Rey

Luis Rey’s vibrantly-colored and often dramatically foreshortened dinosaurs provide a glimpse into a dynamic Mesozoic Era. His unmistakable work has been the visual focus of several books, including Extreme Dinosaurs, A Field Guide to Dinosaurs, and most recently Dinosaurs: the Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, where he moved away from traditional media and began developing digital painting techniques. These techniques were used in the creation of his award-winning piece: Gigantoraptor Nesting Grounds (defending a raid by Alectrosaurus).

• Scientific Illustration: Carol Abraczinskas

Carol’s work has been most familiar to me as skeletal diagrams and specimen illustrations for many of the finds described by Project Expedition – Sarcosuchus (aka SuperCroc), Nigersaurus, and Jobaria, to name a few. Her illustrations have appeared in Science, Nature, National Geographic, and Newsweek. Carol’s renderings of the phalanges and claw of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus won this year’s Lanzendorf Prize for scientific illustration.

Congratulations to this year’s winners!